Paintballing at HIVE Seriously
by Chameleons
Summary: Inexplicably, the newest addition to H.I.V.E's features is a paintball arena. Obviously the last person you'd expect to get involved would be Raven but...
1. Queue and persuasion

**I've just got back from watching les mis and I have no idea why it inspired me to write something as unrelated as this. I have a weird mind! Please review it makes my day :)**

The paintball arena was the newest and most popular of H.I.V.E's features. Installed barely a week ago the novelty had yet to wear off the excitable streams. In essence, the holographic combat was a far better battle simulation than running around with chunky low tech paintball guns but to the students of H.I.V.E it felt like a connection to the outside world doing something normal kids did for once. The Fab Four about two thirds of the way back in the queue,

"Do you know the best thing about Paint balling is?" she said smiling and leaning against the brushed steel corridor.

"What?" asked Shelby,

"Otto's crap at it"

"am not!" Otto protested.

"Face it geek boy" Shelby chipped in, "anything not of, or relating to computers and your useless." Otto huffed,

"I'm not that bad."

"I have to disagree with you there my friend," said Wing with a smirk, "I believe onlookers described the scene last time as 'an one sided paintball apocalypse'"

"That's not fair, they all ganged up on me." Otto fumed in silence and considered getting H.I. to drop something heavy on them.

The first paintballers were starting to spill into the arena, the most being henchman and alphas with the least being the occasional scitech. They all wore padded suits, not in their stream colours but in their teams. The arena was huge, a kilometre square with mini forts, battlements and even an artificially grown forest to liven up the game. Twenty metres up, carefully measured so it was out of range of the paintball guns was the spectator area. The glass fronted area consisted of mainly students who didn't like paint balling or were studying with some light entertainment, school books spread over their laps and empty chairs. There was also a box with darkened one way glass for privacy which was strictly bound to staff only.

Although the teachers at H.I.V.E always enjoyed watching the students blasting themselves to pieces with guns, most of them had lessons to teach so the only onlookers were Raven and Nero. The staff area was more plush than where the students sat, almost like a living room complete with scattered poufs, armchairs, sofas and highly sort after foreign rugs. Nero had pulled up the most villainous piece of furniture he could find, a high-backed, brown leather arm chair with gleaming brass buttons holding the fabric in place. Raven had opted for a bean bag, sitting cross legged up close to the glass staring at the blackbox in her lap.

"You should go in the next round" Nero encouraged, "It would be hilarious watching you massacre them." Raven sighed,

"I'd love to but unfortunately I don't make a habit of blasting students with paintball guns for your entertainment." she said not looking up, "anyway I'm busy reviewing tactics for the next hunt. Do you think we should hire Visco again, because last time he mucked up my-"

"You know I don't interfere with your preparations for the hunt, remember what happened last ti-"

"Yes I remember" said Raven in voice that suggested she wished she didn't, "Hacking the coordinates for the tracking shrouds so that they went in different directions wasn't funny was it." Nero gulped but struggled to swallow smirk at the memory,

"No, that was very catastrophic." he had laid on a bit too much sarcasm, Raven looked up from the detailed diagram on her blackbox to give him the look of death before looking down again. Nero tried another tack, "Paint balling would be fun" he pleaded, "come on there has to be some students you'd want to blast."

"Oh I can think of many" said Raven with a sadistic smile, "but I bet you have more than I do. Tell you what wouldn't it be 'funny' to watch you running around in a jumpsuit shooting students."

"I'm busy" said Nero quickly, Raven smirked;

"You clearly have so much work to do." Nero changed the subject,

"Lets get the video feed up on the queue and see who's going in the next slot. You never know it might be worth it." Nero got the feed but on his black box, pressing a button to beam the film onto the large flatscreen on the wall. He used the black box to scroll down between the cameras, showing tonnes of hyped up henchman before he stopped when he was almost at the end. "Ah ha" he said triumphantly, "tell me you've never wanted to shoot them." Raven looked up for a moment out of mild curiosity and a huge smile spread over her face,

"Who doesn't?" she said sitting up and pocketing the blackbox, "who doesn't want to shoot the Fab Four?"


	2. Punches and popcorn

**Chapter 2 yay! Thank you to the amazingly awesome people who reviewed aka Kukipye, Alpha Three and Alphafive. If you want to be added to the list of awesome people please review, it only takes 30 secs and it makes my day :)**

"Finally!" said Otto as they reached the front of the queue, glad to be free of the ribbing about his paintball skills which had lasted the whole twenty minute wait time. When you went into the preparation area you were supposed to change into your suit first but in reality the torrent of kids headed straight for the armoury. There was every type of modern warfare gun in there, the only catch was they had been weakened so they didn't shoot far and they were full of paint instead of bullets but this didn't deter the students jostling each other to get the best ones. Block and Tackle muscled there way through the wall of bodies and each placed an identically beefy hand on a weedy first year scitech student's shoulders. The boy had managed to get his hands on a pair of hefty AK47s for him and his mate.

"Where you going with them?" said Block or was it Tackle with a voice full of pretend kindness. Tackle twisted they boys wrist round painfully so he dropped the guns,

"Very big guns for little boys" he said with a smirk, "I'll be confiscating these." Shelby grabbed an old fashioned pistol off the wall and fired it into Tackle's nose. Paintballs aren't dangerous but when they paired with close range and a pissed off Shelby they result in injury. Tackle's nose exploded and he howled in pain stemming the blood with his hands while Block went after Shelby with an animalistic roar. Shelby dodged Block's clumsy grab and managed to snatch the two AK47s from where Tackle had dropped them. Shelby ducked a punch as she handed the guns back to the scared looking boys,

"There you go squirts, I suggest you run off to the changing rooms now before-" she deflected another attack, "you know what I mean."

"Th-thankyou" one boy managed to stutter before he darted off to the changing rooms with his friend. As soon as they were gone Shelby spun round and slugged Block with a sturdy punch in the stomach, emphasising it with an exaggerated,

"ker-pow!" as Block doubled over.

"Really Shelby?" said Laura raising an eyebrow. Shelby grinned slightly maniacally,

"I'm just warming up."

"May I remind you that the only violence in the arena is with paintball guns." Wing replied.

"I'm just doing my good deed for the day" Shelby said defensively,

"Since when did shooting someone in the face and punching someone in the gut count as a good deed." Otto reminded her,

"Er hum" Shelby faked clearing her throat, "this is the higher institute of 'villainous' education. I saved two nerds, that's about as much as my moral standards can take."

"Anyway guys we'd better scoot" said Laura slightly anxiously indicating the blue LED ringed cameras that had just tilted towards them. "For all we know there's a whole classroom of staff up there watching us."

There wasn't a whole classroom of staff up there at watching the feed, in fact there was just one. Nero hummed to himself as he zapped a bowl microwave popcorn, he knew he should send someone to intervene but the boys' injuries didn't look bad and he didn't want to ruin his chance of watching Raven with a paintball gun. There was a special counter at the side of the room for making popcorn and Nero deliberated over sweet or salty. In the end he went for salty because it seemed the most villainous of the two and he grabbed his bowl and settled himself in the arm chair. The tired paint splattered students were trudging out of the arena leaving a trail of multicoloured paint behind them. When they had all gone through the small door at the side, huge water jets blasted from all around the arena, not completely cleaning the paint but at least showing the difference between old and new. He was still worried though that Raven wasn't going to go so he sent her a message on his blackbox, 'u still up 4 it?' he drummed his fingers anxiously waiting for a reply. His blackbox dinged to indicate that he had received a message 'gd yeah omw right now!'. Nero smiled to himself and popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth, he was all set to watch the show.


	3. Game change

**Sorry I haven't updated this story in ages. I got writers block and I didn't want to write something bad. I went paintballing so what better excuse!**

The changing room was nothing special, either H.I.V.E. had budgets or they just wanted to make it feel authentic, but none of the money invested in the arena had found its way here. It was a huge, almost Victorian style room, with mud caked benches and creaky floor boards. At the far end there was a rusting movable clothes rail with lines and lines of fresh overalls on them. Despite appearances of their surroundings, they were freshly laundered. The only system to this was the colour, you had to check on your blackbox and H.I.V. would tell you what colour overall your should have. The colour of your overall corresponded to your team, which was chosen by H.I.V. . The Alphas were pleased to discover that, as always, H.I.V. had put them in the same team. However, as the teams where of five, they did not know who their fifth member was.

The Alphas pulled on the overalls, which, although they were clean, felt stiff from heavy pummelling. Today they're team colour was purple. On the other side of the room were slatted shelves with rows of helmets chucked on them. The Alphas fixed the goggles to their faces and strode out into the arena. As they stepped out, a bellowing announcement echoed through the arena,

"Today, there is a change of game. The will be a base hidden somewhere in the woods, the team that has control of it by the end of the game wins. The rules are simple: you will not be disqualified if you are shot, and there is no minimum shooting range. For this reason we urge all students to keep there goggles on at all times. The game will commence in 30 seconds."

The Alphas had a second to stare at each other blankly before the booming voice started again,

"Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty eight..."

"Go" yelled Shelby, setting off at a sprint towards the woods.

Raven secured a pair of goggles over her face as she entered the arena, she was too late to find her team but hopefully she would meet up with them later in the game.

"Ten, nine, eight..." Raven sprinted towards the forest. Once under cover of trees she raised her gun, twitching it from tree to tree, pivoting on the spot occasionally. There were a few smattering sounds of firing every now and and again but they were further away. She paused for a moment, she guessed that it had been Nero who had warranted the game change. Raven closed her eyes for long enough to visualise the layout of the arena in her head. It only took her a second to guess Nero's thought processes, and in a moment she knew exactly where it was. Smirking she took off at a silent run.


End file.
